Posted on 08/26/2014 8:42:39 PM PDT by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) The Los Angeles Unified School District is scrapping its controversial $1 billion iPad program.
Superintendent John Deasy sent a letter Monday to the Board of Education notifying them that he is ending his contract with Apple, according to the LA Times.
Recent emails revealed Deasy had a two-year business relationship with the technology giant prior to awarding Apple the district contract.
United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents LAUSD teachers, is calling for Deasy to explain his association with Apple and the lack of a bidding process involving other tablet makers.
The superintendent does not get to just say, never mind after all the problems the iPad rollout caused this district. Students, parents, and educators have a right to know what happened, the union said.
UTLA plans to demand answers at the LAUSDs board meeting Tuesday afternoon.
The districts iPad program was plagued with problems since its launch in 2013, including troubles tracking the devices, software updates, hacking and overall cost.
The tablets get "lost".
Even if the tablets didn't get eaten by dogs or whatever, any time educators replaced real education with gizmos learning suffered.
That’s true. As a matter of fact this is being posted from a kindle.
CC
It’s a great idea. Apple is too pricey.
The goal should be go replace text books. One set of books for the year should cost more than a low cost tablet.
The problem is damage and loss. If the parents can pay over time that might take of it. Or if the district could save enough on books to cover the cosy.
A few years ago, Indianapolis public schools launched a pilot program to give all the kids in one high school laptops to use.
Within a week, 30 of them had already turned up in pawn shops.
Now IPS has the “IPS” symbol engraved on the top of every one.
“the dog ate my homework” gets replaced by “the dog ate my iPad”? Now that’s technological progress!
CC
well now what are the youts going watch pron and youtube vids on?
Apple is doing this around the country. Lots of payola.
Cheaper to be sure. But not even close to comparable in quality and product. It's like a black and white CRT TV compared to a high def. LCD flatscreen. Yeah one is a lot cheaper...
Samsung is the closest IMO. Kindle kind of not such a good item when compared to an IPAD.
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